Macbeth
Act III, Scene 5
A heath.
Why, how now, Hecat? You look angerly.
William Rimmer, circa 1850
- Thunder. Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecat.
First Witch
1- Why, how now, Hecat? You look angerly.
Hecat
2 - 36- Have I not reason, beldams as you are?
- Saucy and overbold, how did you dare
- To trade and traffic with Macbeth
- In riddles and affairs of death;
- And I, the mistress of your charms,
- The close contriver of all harms,
- Was never call’d to bear my part,
- Or show the glory of our art?
- And which is worse, all you have done
- Hath been but for a wayward son,
- Spiteful and wrathful, who (as others do)
- Loves for his own ends, not for you.
- But make amends now. Get you gone,
- And at the pit of Acheron
- Meet me i’ th’ morning; thither he
- Will come to know his destiny.
- Your vessels and your spells provide,
- Your charms and every thing beside.
- I am for th’ air; this night I’ll spend
- Unto a dismal and a fatal end.
- Great business must be wrought ere noon:
- Upon the corner of the moon
- There hangs a vap’rous drop profound,
- I’ll catch it ere it come to ground;
- And that, distill’d by magic sleights,
- Shall raise such artificial sprites
- As by the strength of their illusion
- Shall draw him on to his confusion.
- He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
- His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace, and fear;
- And you all know, security
- Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.
- Music, and a song. Sing within:
- “Come away, come away, etc.”
- Hark, I am call’d; my little spirit, see,
- Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.
- Exit.
First Witch
37- Come, let’s make haste, she’ll soon be back again.
- Exeunt.
Jane Shirreff as one of the witches in Macbeth
Augustus Toedteberg; Richard James Lane, printmaker; late 19th cent.